If there is an afterlife, Gutenberg must be amazed by the new revolution that is transforming the book industry, following the same trends and evolution than the ones followed by all the contents that can be digitalized and sent over as bits over the communication pipelines, wireless or wired.

During centuries the book industry has moved as slow as the process of enjoying the pleasure of reading a good book. Evolution has been mainly focused in the contents and in the technology to print faster, with better quality and in a more economic way, as to make profitable businesses out of the activity.

Technology had already knocked at the door of the industry, and in the last five to eight years, some ebook readers, mainly software versions for PDA’s and PC’s, started to be released in the market, with a limited offer of commercial books, as publishers were still very reactive to digital versions of the books. As always, the free movments  pointed the way, and some projects both global and locall, like project Gutenberg, started to released free license books over the internet. 

Although generating some interest, the results were not very bright, as the terminals available to read those books were not precisely focused and build to allow long periods of reading, and in the end, either you would quite with your eyes burned from looking at the low resolution screen, or the device’s battery died on you.

Over time, as research developed new screens, new batteries, and Amazon decided to replicate the Apple’s Itunes success with books and created Kindle, the digital ebooks started to be very fashionable. Several manufacturers announced plans to create new ebook readers, and the market has now over 10 hardware ebook readers, that allows people to bring with them thousand of books in a single SD Card.

Iphone and the itunes are also making their move, and most of the ebooks downloaded  are precisely in the Apple’s solution.

Now the publishers are facing a very important challenge, as it is now becoming as easy to copy illegaly a book than to copy a song, or a movie. People are getting aware of the benefits of digital books, and as the audience grows, so does the interest to break copyright protections and to copy illegaly the content.

Ebooks are now cool and trendy, and it is very usual to see someone reading books in one of the new hardware, but a question still arises from it, is  reading an ebook as pleasant than to read a hardcover book? In an era, where we are facing information overload and it is becoming harder to really access valuable information and to make use of it, is it really valuable to bring hundreds of books, if in the end we only read a couple of them?

The answer to this question is  rather simple, as I think that in the end, there will be books that make sense to read in an electronic format, while others will have to a dedicated and specialized approach, like the ones music lovers have with vinyl discs compared to CD or MP3 formats.

So the future is not only digital, there will be room for the two formats to cohabit and to strenghten mutually by creating sinergies that will end in increasing the number of readers. The same process has happened with music and movies being exchanged over the internet (torrent, emule) and where usually, the people that has pirated a content, will most probably ending buying it, because it really interesed the viewer. We are replicating the same mechanisms that exists currently in the web with the blogs. Initially, just the fact of calling something a blog, made it interesting and to be read. Overtime with the increase of the number of blogs, readers became more aware of quality and its value raising, in the process, their standards of quality.

The same thing will happen with books, digital and paper will coexist for long years, as the pleasure of touching and smelling a good book will never be replaced by the ethereous bits & Bytes.

Image via Wikipedia